Heritage Auctions is honored to be offering Norman Rockwell's
Ben Franklin's Sesquicentennial, formerly in the collection
of the actress Debbie Reynolds, which graced the cover of the May
29, 1926 Saturday Evening Post. Commissioned in celebration
of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, the painting is significant as Rockwell's only cover
illustration out of over 500 featuring a Founding Father. The
painting's popularity led to its reproduction on the cover of the
July 4, 1976 Chicago Tribune Magazine, kicking off the
country's Bicentennial year, and to its inclusion in twelve major
exhibitions nationwide since the early 1970s.

On July 4, 1776, fifty-six delegates to the Second Continental
Congress met at the Pennsylvania State House and signed the
Declaration of Independence, officially declaring the thirteen
American colonies a new nation. In this 1926 Post cover,
Rockwell spotlights the noted statesman-writer-inventor-educator
Benjamin Franklin alone among these Founding Fathers. Wearing
traditional homespun breeches, waistcoat, and velvet outer coat,
Franklin leans on a Federal desk and engages the viewer, his quill
pen hovering over the weighty document. A book propped against the
desk leg underscores Franklin's identity as an author and
publisher; behind his head, the heraldic American seal, emblazoned
with unfurling ribbons, flashing eagle wings, and bright stars,
hints at two of his other instrumental roles, U.S. diplomat and
experimenter with electricity.

Ben Franklin's Sesquicentennial merits comparison with other
magazine covers from this period. Rockwell borrowed the composition
directly from his June 7, 1924 Post cover, Daydreaming
Bookkeeper(fig. 1). Here, an accountant similarly leans
on a desk in profile, his hand holding a pen over a ledger. Objects
defining each man appear in identical places: on the corner of the
desk, the accountant's rubber stamp stand versus Franklin's ink pot
with quills; at the foot of the desk, a basket with work papers
versus a book; and behind the men, a tondo with a ship on the high
seas versus one with the American eagle seal. Through the
intentional placement of iconography, Rockwell shows that the men
are far more than their day jobs as bookkeeper or book publisher;
rather, they are imaginers of larger dreams, whether of
swashbuckling sea adventure or American freedom.

At the same time, Rockwell deliberately contrasts Ben Franklin's
Sesquicentennial with the 1767 David Martin painting of
Franklin that Literary Digest published on its January 16,
1926 Sesquicentennial cover (fig. 2). Martin depicts
Franklin as an introspective, upper-class philosopher-scholar
rather than as a relatable man of action. Seated at a desk covered
with a rich satin cloth and anchored by a classical bust, Franklin,
absorbed in thought, pores over his political treatises.
Oppositely, Rockwell's Franklin embraces the look of an everyday
citizen, shedding a formal powdered wig and opting for a simpler
coat without gold embroidery. Even more important, Rockwell's
Franklin directly gazes at the viewer, involving him in this
momentous declaration he is about to sign:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.

Why did Rockwell choose Franklin among the Founding Fathers,
instead of Thomas Jefferson or John Adams, for example, for his
Sesquicentennial Post cover? The first reason was
Philadelphia. Rockwell's May 29 cover served as an advertisement
for the eagerly anticipated Sesquicentennial International
Exposition, a world's fair that opened in South Philadelphia on May
31 and ran through November. Franklin, of course, embodied
Philadelphia: moving to Philadelphia as a youth, he founded the
Pennsylvania Gazette, organized the Associated Regiment of
Philadelphia of the Continental Army, represented Pennsylvania as a
diplomat to England and France, served as the Philadelphia
postmaster (later the Postmaster General), was named the first
president of the Academy and College of Philadelphia (University of
Pennsylvania), signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S.
Constitution as the delegate from Pennsylvania, and led the state
as the president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and as the
governor of Pennsylvania.

The city of Philadelphia had been planning the Sesquicentennial
celebration since 1921, and as the Post launched Rockwell's
cover, even more images of Franklin and his object counterpart, the
Liberty Bell, began abounding. In order to help pay for the fair,
the U.S. government issued a commemorative stamp depicting the
Liberty Bell, as well as two coins: a silver half dollar with the
heads of George Washington and Calvin Coolidge on the obverse and
the Liberty Bell on the reverse, and a $2.5 gold quarter eagle with
Liberty holding a torch on one side and Independence Hall on the
other. (In 1948 the designer of these coins, John R. Sinnock,
created a half-dollar coin with Franklin on the obverse and the
Liberty Bell on the reverse.) Meanwhile, a local lithography
company produced a sheet of eight stamps, including one with the
silhouette of Franklin, lauding Philadelphia as a center for the
arts, scientific research, and commerce. On opening day, fairgoers
entered the grounds beneath a colossal, illuminated Liberty Bell
and walked past the "Founders Pylons," columns representing the
thirteen colonies and their respective signers of the Declaration
of Independence (fig. 3). They could tour, among other
attractions, a model post office and the "Tower of Light" -
referencing Franklin's work as a postmaster and scientist. They
could roam through international exhibitions in five "palaces,"
conceived by the young architect Louis Kahn, and purchase a variety
of souvenirs with the iconic Liberty Bell: car ornaments, ladies'
compacts, spoons, pins, flags, copper trays, shoehorns, postcards,
and paperweights. And after July 1, they could access the city from
the Delaware River Bridge, in 1955 renamed the Benjamin Franklin
Bridge, whose grand opening was the event of the
Sesquicentennial.

Franklin would have also appealed to Rockwell as a Post
cover subject because Franklin was in fact the "spiritual father"
of the Post, having served as the longtime editor of its
parent publication, The Pennsylvania Gazette. The most
influential newspaper in the colonies, the Gazette ran from
1728-1800 and offered citizens news about the Revolution, the new
Republic, and foreign affairs; articles on cultural and social
events; editorials and classified ads; essays and letters from
readers; and fiction, non-fiction, and cartoons. As the editor and
publisher, Franklin presented his own pieces, often under aliases,
in genres ranging from scientific research to political treatises
to satirical short stories. In 1821, several decades after
Franklin's death, The Saturday Evening Post was founded as
the offspring of The Pennsylvania Gazette, promoting the
same variety of features intended to attract a large middle-class
audience. All Post issues from 1821-1942 included a masthead
with Franklin's portrait and the description, "An Illustrated
Weekly Founded A.D. 1728 by Benj. Franklin." In addition, every
January from 1943-1961, the Post highlighted a cover image
of Franklin along with one of his famous quotes. Rockwell himself
documented the moment when the Post folded in 1969, drawing
for an Atlantic Monthly article a charcoal portrait entitled
Ben Franklin Weeping Over the Demise of the Post.

No doubt Rockwell selected Franklin as the subject of the
Post's Sesquicentennial cover because the artist saw himself
in the great Founding Father. In particular, Franklin's identity as
a representative of the American people would have resonated with
Rockwell. Franklin served the colonists not merely as a statesman -
signing all four key documents establishing the US as a country and
furthering diplomacy in England and France - but also as a
publisher and social activist. Through his wildly popular Poor
Richard's Almanack, which he released annually from 1733-1758
under the penname Richard Saunders, Franklin defined for the new
nation a moral code based on self-governance, hard work, education,
frugality, temperance, humility, justice, public service, and
religious and political freedom. (Rockwell illustrated a compendium
of Poor Richard's Almanacks in 1963.) Franklin's Puritan
beliefs that all men are equal and that a man's worth stems from
his moral behavior, not his class, led him eventually to free his
slaves and condemn the institution of slavery. Likewise, through
his illustrations, Rockwell considered himself a spokesman for the
American people. His early work, especially for the Post,
reinforced traditional, middle-class values of family, faith,
community, and economic prosperity. And his later work, especially
for Look magazine in the 1960s, tackled provocative social
and political topics, which advocated for racial equality and world
peace.

That Rockwell deemed himself a "Founding Father of American
Illustration" is evidenced in several of his key self-portraits.
For the July 1976 edition of American Artist, commemorating
the country's Bicentennial, Rockwell depicts himself wrapping a
"happy birthday" ribbon around the Liberty Bell, a painter's
mahlstick beneath his arm and an open case of paint supplies at his
feet (fig. 4). Here, Rockwell is a literal substitute for
Franklin, his artwork as instrumental as Franklin's writings in
defining the American ethos. And in his famous 1960 Triple
Self-Portrait, whose study Heritage sold for a record-breaking
$1.3 million, Rockwell places himself within the Western canon -
symbolized by the postcard self-portraits of Durer, Rembrandt,
Picasso, and van Gogh tacked to the canvas - while simultaneously
framing himself within a specifically American art tradition -
symbolized by the Federal mirror topped by an eagle with American
shield (fig. 5). Indeed, Triple Self-Portrait bears
striking similarities with Ben Franklin's Sesquicentennial.
Both paintings utilize a predominant palette of "American flag"
red, white, and blue. In the one, Rockwell is seated at an easel
and holds a paintbrush, about to complete his portrait; in the
other, Franklin leans on a desk and holds an ink quill, about to
sign the Declaration. While Rockwell positions his back to the
picture plane, his mirror image gazes directly at the viewer, like
Franklin, "speaking to the people." By Rockwell's foot, a bucket of
discarded paper and paint tubes mimics the book by Franklin's foot;
correspondingly, Rockwell's reflected head, like Franklin's, is
offset by an eagle with shield. These intentionally parallel
compositional devices equate Rockwell with Franklin and impart a
powerful message: just as Franklin was not merely a book publisher,
but the Author of American Liberty, so too, was Rockwell not merely
a painter, but the Illustrator of and for the American People.

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